Health systems across the country are increasingly joining forces with retail and tech-driven care platforms, using these partnerships to extend their reach beyond traditional brick-and-mortar settings.
Amazon One Medical
Amazon One Medical has built a network of health system affiliates focused on connecting its primary care members to specialty services.
On Jan. 1, Chicago-based Rush University System for Health launched its partnership with Amazon One Medical to expand access to virtual and in-person specialty care. Since the partnership began, the three-hospital system has received more than 20 specialty care referrals from One Medical patients in the Chicago market, all for in-person visits. Rush’s chief strategy officer told Becker’s the health system views the arrangement as “augmenting our strategy,” noting not every patient wants to access care the same way.
Also effective Jan. 1, New York City-based Montefiore Health System expanded its collaboration with Amazon One Medical, becoming the primary specialty care partner for the company’s Manhattan patients. The agreement builds on a partnership that previously focused on Westchester County and one Manhattan site. Montefiore will offer coordinated specialty care for Amazon One Medical primary care patients at 15 Manhattan locations, along with its existing One Medical site in Westchester County. Amazon One Medical patients will gain access to specialty services including orthopedics, women’s health, cardiac care, neurology, transplant programs and advanced imaging. Patients who require hospitalization may be admitted directly to Montefiore facilities.
Amazon One Medical and Cleveland Clinic have also continued to deepen their collaboration, opening their second joint primary care office in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The new office offers preventive care, chronic disease management and treatment for common illnesses, with on-site lab services and same- or next-day appointments available to patients. The Shaker Heights location follows the organizations’ first joint primary care site in Northeast Ohio, which opened in October.
Hartford HealthCare and Virginia Mason Franciscan Health are also continuing to build on their One Medical partnerships. Virginia Mason Franciscan Health works with about 35 One Medical primary care providers and gains roughly 350 net new patients per month, patients who had not used the system in the previous three years. The partnership has increased total primary care capacity in the Seattle market by more than 25% while remaining cost-competitive with the system’s employed physician model.
Across these partnerships, leaders have consistently pointed to access as the central rationale. Although each partnership is structured differently, health system leaders agree One Medical offers a scalable, flexible way to expand primary care without relying solely on traditional employment models.
CVS
CVS has been building out a parallel strategy, pairing its MinuteClinic footprint with health system affiliates to scale a primary care model across its retail locations.
Hartford HealthCare is the latest health system to sign on. As of May 7, the Connecticut system is collaborating with CVS MinuteClinic to offer in-network adult primary care services at all 20 Connecticut MinuteClinic locations for many insurance plans accepted by the health system. The partnership expands access to same-day and next-day appointments, evening and weekend hours, and care coordination through a shared EHR. MinuteClinic primary care patients also will have access to Hartford HealthCare’s hospitals, specialists, diagnostic services, advanced imaging and specialty labs.
The deal reflects how far CVS’ primary care ambitions have reached. The company operates more than 1,000 MinuteClinic locations across 40 states, and more than 65% of those locations now offer adult primary care through affiliations with health systems and payers.
In 2025, Somerville, Mass.-based Mass General Brigham and CVS submitted plans to transform 37 MinuteClinic locations into MinuteClinic Primary Care sites and place those facilities in Mass General Brigham’s network of providers, participating in the system’s payer contracts. The deal would enable referrals to the system’s hospitals, specialists, diagnostic services and laboratories for follow-up care.
The partnership is drawing regulatory scrutiny. In a 66-page report published April 16, the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission analyzed how the proposed collaboration could affect the state’s healthcare market, finding it could raise annual healthcare spending by $40 million after the first three years of implementation. Both CVS and Mass General Brigham have pushed back on those findings, arguing the analysis does not account for longer-term reductions in total cost of care.
The broader picture
As access continues to be an issue health systems across the country are working to address, partnerships with companies such as Amazon One Medical and CVS offer patients greater access to services. Amazon One Medical has specialty care referral agreements with about 20 health systems across the country.
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